A. Ronald Grimm: ACA first step on needed road to national health care

The Affordable Care Act has been attacked by Republicans with a litany of lies recently detailed in a Gazette column. The author mouths the party line that is only too familiar. The background is complex and deeper than objection to the law’s number of pages or “death squads.”

Republican rancor is rooted in racism in an attempt to carry out a political lynching of the country’s first African-American president. The law was “pushed through” after nearly a year of Republican “nyet” to every detail. They left the table. They spare little in an attempt to make the ACA a “train-wreck.”

Providers who have learned to lucratively game the system abhor change. Self-interest is prime. The U.S. is the only first-world country without national health care. The medical-industrial complex is the 800-pound gorilla in a system that pays an insurance CEO $125 million a year and denies insurance to those who need it — the sick people. Providers are paid for the volume rather than the quality of care. Massachusetts health care is not “a complete government takeover of medicine.” The Affordable Care Act is not perfect but given time the rough edges will be smoothed out. It is the first step toward a single-payer national health system with access for all. Hospitals have been purchasing physician practices, large hospitals are purchasing smaller ones and regionalization is rapidly advancing. Despite the attacks and lies the ACA is the first step toward a bright future in which all Americans will have access to our world-class medical care.